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file corruption help

I'm using 9.6 on a Mac (2.8, 8G of RAM) but maybe this problem is more widespread.

I'm creating an animation using some Hard FX, but periodically, and somewhat arbitrarily, Lightwave will hang up on a calculation, or when stopping a preview, or just because I click and move something.

That in itself is a problem, but the bigger one is that somehow my scene file gets corrupted and will no longer open. So I began saving iterations every so often. That too is hassle enough, but for some reason my iterations are now getting corrupted 2 and 3 versions back. When opening, Lightwave will go through its motions, show me the stage and then nothing but beach ball.

Not even digging an older theoretically "clean" file out of Time Machine seems to make any difference. "Save As" is apparently not protecting the older versions. It's possible the file is not corrupt and it's Layout - but I can't even open the files when switching machines. Same beach balling. Force quit is my only out.

Sounds to me just like some sort of config corruption. That's about the only thing I can think of.

This might help, might not, but the first thing you probably ought to try is to delete your config files and let LW write new ones.
I have no idea where they would be on Mac, but in Windows Vista/Windows 7 by default they're in Users/username and in XP they're in Documents and Settings. So I guess in Mac they'd be in a similar folder for user app data.
You'd be looking for files with LW in them and a .cfg extension, like "LW9.CFG"

If you decide to do that, you can probably safely manually save out any custom keyboard shortcut and custom menu files prior to deleting the configs, then load them up later, as all that info will get wiped clean if you delete your configs.

The load/edit/save menus and keys dialogs can be reached through Modeler and layout with Alt+F9 and Alt+F10. Or whatever the Mac equivalent of the Alt key is.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I went through that drill to no avail. I think I may be on to something though. It seemed like no matter what I did in the last several versions, I could not open past a certain rev number. Even opening it up and saving as a totally new file wouldn't let me reopen - even by not quitting and just clearing the scene.

I finally went through and deleted all my dynamics and voila - I can suddenly save as and reopen.

Pain in the arse, having to rebuild (did save motion files) but I'm not convinced it won't happen again.

Maybe I had something off, or I'm doing something wrong. All it really amounted to were some block type objects flying off a plane, using a wind object set to explosion.

I have this all the time with 9.6 on the mac-its a real killer....nothing to do with dynamics but several other things, sliders, loading and removing objects etc....so much stuff i still cant get to the bottom of it. I find that if you keep trying to re-open the file it will eventually open.....im talking 20+ attempts and force quits and on large scenes thats a whole morning of shouting at my screen. Even once its open, you can be sure it'l lock up again and your back to square one. I have to resort to saving out to 9.3 and kick 9.6 to touch.

I have this all the time with 9.6 on the mac-its a real killer....nothing to do with dynamics but several other things, sliders, loading and removing objects etc....so much stuff i still cant get to the bottom of it. I find that if you keep trying to re-open the file it will eventually open.....im talking 20+ attempts and force quits and on large scenes thats a whole morning of shouting at my screen. Even once its open, you can be sure it'l lock up again and your back to square one. I have to resort to saving out to 9.3 and kick 9.6 to touch.

oh...ah...

i've just started a new thread about similar occurences- see 'moody layout' post- but this seems to be a similar scenario...is this a mac specific problem, do we think? cos then for future projects i'll definitely switch over to win vista 64, as the machine is allready dual-booted for that...but the current large project will have to be finished on a mac platfrom...it would be nice if the mac version could sort it out though

oh an yeah, i've had problems with removing items from the scene too...rainbow wheel comin atcha
and cloning items too- this forces a hell of a lot of 'workrounds'

Well that's a heap of sadness to encounter then, even if I am relieved I'm not the only one out there experiencing it. I finally 86'd the dynamics in favor of animating all my geometries by hand. Not as simple, but the cat's getting skinned so to speak (with apologies to the kitty lovers here). I just hate the fact that I was defeated in the process. Agh, I hate that.

So I will tread carefully. This is my first encounter with this problem, but it sounds like it may not simply be dynamics based after all. Will check out your other thread John. Thanks for calling it out.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I went through that drill to no avail. I think I may be on to something though. It seemed like no matter what I did in the last several versions, I could not open past a certain rev number. Even opening it up and saving as a totally new file wouldn't let me reopen - even by not quitting and just clearing the scene.

I finally went through and deleted all my dynamics and voila - I can suddenly save as and reopen.

Pain in the arse, having to rebuild (did save motion files) but I'm not convinced it won't happen again.

If the scenes you couldn't open all referred to the same motion file, that could explain it. Or, wasn't there a problem using older objects in 9.6?

I don't have many problems like you guys, but :
1. I'm not on intel mac
2. I hardly ever approach 4m polygons
3. I hardly ever use dynamics
4. because of my slower machine I don't do certain things, like cc subdivision

Do you all have these in common by any chance? Do you ever have problems without dynamics, 4m polys or cc's?

It happened to me when I tried to use dynamics (particle emmiters with collision). There were a lot of particles, finnaly I workedaround it - i just gave up.

No CC experience yet, I stick to the "old way".

It also occured on a simple, sub-D object with rather hi-res bitmap texture. Chilton asked me for a system "dump" file, just before he "left" - just mention that it was some "memory leakage", but that was it...

I also sent Chilton a bunch of error logs but it went no further. Im using a fast mac intel 8core monster with shed loadsa ram-4million poly scenes and no dynamics! Everyday im fighting off the beachball with the force quit! ARGGH!!!

Haven't done anything yet in 9.6 over a couple hundred thousand polys, nor have I done anything with CC subD. And the crashing did seem to happen before I had even saved one motion file out. In fact, I started saving them out while working as a way to avoid the crashes. No deal.

I'd say the only peculiar thing from my scene (as I mentioned in the other similar thread) is the size of my environment. Working on a 1Km plane. Not really intuitive though.

If Chilton's left the building, do we know if there's even a mac person here who's fending for us and addressing mac related gripes?

If Chilton's left the building, do we know if there's even a mac person here who's fending for us and addressing mac related gripes?

There are others, they're just not as visible. Chuck has taken over that duty, and I'm sure he'd make sure you submitted a bug report; the more bug reports for the same problem, the higher priority it'll get.

Originally Posted by Otterman

I also sent Chilton a bunch of error logs but it went no further. Im using a fast mac intel 8core monster with shed loadsa ram-4million poly scenes and no dynamics! Everyday im fighting off the beachball with the force quit! ARGGH!!!

I'd be so aggravated if I update my old dual g5 and LW response got worse. I'd be scaring the neighbors with my fits.

It's starting to sound like an intel mac and/or Leopard issue, I just remembered, I'm also on OS10.4.11 still. I seriously hope the Cocoa build solves this, without introducing new bugs...

Yes, I've had a lot of trouble this way with dynamics. Think the trouble starts when the scene is opening and it is loading the various saved dynamic files. It is better to not save these with the scene and load them later once the scene is opened. Discovered this when it needs a few MDDs.

Another thing with a corrupted file is to hide -remove the objects from (out of the folder) the path the scene file is looking for. Then when it asks for object give it the path or else if you suspect trouble give it a simple cube and see if the rest of the scene loads OK.

Don't know if this is any help, there is a limit to what it can take in, especially with big image maps. We badly need the 64 bit Lightwave on the Mac.

As Glendalough said-i found that hiding some of the objects does indeep help. I narrowed down one particular object that a scene seemed to hang on when opening and it was just a simple 1 polygon plaine i use as a reflective ground....nothing fancy at all! Now i just add it in after once its open. Still doesnt guarentee it wont lock up though.. its a ball ache!